What has Happened to Premier League Defences?

Watching Arsenal’s electric 5-3 victory over Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, and witnessing Gary Neville’s near-breakdown at half-time on Sky Sports over the defending from both sides, made me wonder what has happened to the solid premier league defences that we have been used to in recent seasons.

Already this season we have seen score-lines of 8-2, 6-1, 5-1, and now 5-3 between clubs that are competing for those all-important top four spaces.

In many ways this latest goal-fest is the most surprising, not because of the way Arsenal conceded three, but that Chelsea, a team known for their ability to keep clean sheets with ruthless defending, conceded five.

What is more, it could have easily been more, for both teams. Arsenal spurned two gilt-edge chances to take the lead in the first five minutes and Chelsea were uncharacteristically wasteful at the other end.

It seemed that both teams only had to play a hopeful ball over the top and they were in behind their opponents defence with a chance of scoring.

Strangely, the personnel in defences of these teams, previously known for defensive resoluteness (excluding Arsenal from this statement), are all top class performers.

Chelsea’s back four with John Terry alongside Branislav Ivanovic looks just as strong on paper as it was last season and Manchester United’s defenders are all internationals (yes even Johnny Evans). Even with stalwarts Ferdinand and Vidic having their injury problems the likes of Chris Smalling and Phil Jones are capable of protecting David De Gea.

As for Arsenal, they have never been a team that looks solid at the back and this is still very much the case. Whilst the ever-improving Laurent Koscielny impresses, Per Mertesacker is still coming to terms with the pace and power of the premier league and Andre Santos looked all-at-sea and rather lacking in speed despite his second half goal against Chelsea.

Are these just freak results?

Have there have been drastic changes made behind the scenes to the defensive tactics/mentality at Tottenham, Manchester United, and Chelsea?

Both these explanations seem unlikely.

What is certainly true is that the attacking abilities of the premier league forwards appear to be at an all-time high, especially at Manchester City.

The young pretenders are looking more likely to leap out of the shadows of their successful neighbours in red, due to being the only team from last year’s top four with the ability to defend and shut out games, as well as taking apart teams at the other end.

Despite being a team only just assembled in the last couple of seasons, City look a whole lot more professional in their approach than the title-chase veterans Chelsea, Man United, and Arsenal, for whom attack appears to be the very only form of defence.

This gives their title chances a massive boost in credibility.

One thing is for sure - if this trend of the top teams defending badly, yet attacking well continues we can expect to enjoy some more goal-filled Match of the Day episodes.

However we might then have to put up with the faces of Alan Hansen and Gary Neville reaching new levels of redness.   

Time to Bring Back a Maximum Wage?

Is the only way for UEFA to really achieve financial fair play to bring in a maximum wage limit across European football?

We are currently in the midst of a three-year transitional period for clubs to move towards breaking even in their accounts. Michel Platini has felt strongly about this for some time, saying that “rampant commercialism” has been “assailing” the game, and the first 3 year section of a transitional period that will last until 2017 began at the start of this season.

According to UEFA, at the end of this drawn-out transitional period, clubs accounts (excluding expenditure on youth development, stadium infrastructure, community development, and depreciation on tangible fixed assets) will show they are breaking even. However, there have already been signs that some clubs might look to find a way round these rules, for example one of the clubs likely to be hardest hit by them, Manchester City.

Looking through the club’s website, it is noticeable that a large amount of the Manchester City sponsors are in fact linked to their owner s.  Etihad Airways have sponsored Manchester City £400m to change the name of the stadium to ‘The Etihad Stadium’ for the next 10 years. This is over twice the amount of the previous record, and UEFA are looking into the deal to see if it breaches their Licensing and Fair Play Regulations.

Gianni Infantino, Uefa’s general secretary claims that the FFP regulations will effectively create a soft wage cap by limiting spending, a view backed up by Andy Green, an investment analyst who writes the Anders Red football finance blog, who says that FFP will be a wage cap by stealth.

However, this view is not shared by Sam Rush, chief operating officer of Wasserman Media Group, whose clients include Steven Gerrard, Michael Owen and Football Writers’ Player of the Year Scott Parker. He does not expect the income of the elite athletes to be affected: “I don't think Champions League footballers should expect their wages to decrease at all,” said Rush. “There are plenty of revenue-generating opportunities that have not been explored in the past so I'm certainly not worried that the elite entertainers in world sport are going to suffer financially as a result.”

Therefore, a worst-case scenario, even after the regulations have been completely put in place, could see clubs still managing to spend incredibly larger amounts that others on players due to sponsorship from their owners, thus being able to offer huge wages.

In this case maybe UEFA should go the whole hog so to speak and put a cap on wages, of say £100,000 p/w. This would stop still allow the top clubs to pay their players incredible sums of money, but at the same time, create a more even playing field between the these clubs. Players would make decisions to join different teams based on footballing and social issues rather than monetary ones, as all the best teams will most likely be paying the same wages.

Due to the power of the top clubs and the players unions e.g. the PFA, the chances of UEFA being able to go through with this are obviously very small. But the same was probably said of the FFP rules that are currently being set in motion, and if all goes to plan elite football’s finances could be entirely different in 5 years’ time.